MUMBAI: IBF members received a bit of a
jolt on 23 April. Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati CEO and IBF chairman
K S Sarma - the one player likely to be least affected by the CAS
transition - said that he was not in favour of reducing the number
of cities in which CAS has to roll out from four to one.

Sarma also disagreed that the number of channels in the free to air
basic tier should be unlimited. He pointblank asserted that the FTA
channel number should left to the task force to decide.

His dissenting voice comes even as members of the IBF - who run
pay TV subscription channels and whose advertising revenue could
plunge following the reduction in the number of viewing homes courtesy
CAS - have been demanding that conditional access should be rolled
out in a phased manner, first in one city and then gradually to
the remaining three, as mandated by the government.

Sarma's stand on the FTA issue has also come as a setback for free
to air broadcasters such as Sahara TV and Sabe TV which have expressed
the view that there should be no limit on the number of free channels
in the basic tier. Their fear is that cable TV operators may arm
twist them into paying fees for carriage.